Blockbuster BD rental discussion thread - Page 119

I forgot about Looper. I just added it to my Netflix queue. No chance of Blockbuster getting it to me. It's release date is Monday(instead of the normal Tuesday) which is why Netflix already shipped it. 95% of the time Netflix sends me a new title and I get it on release date. It was always just the opposite for Blockbuster. I'm only using 3dbdrental and Blockbuster for previously released discs and Netflix for new content.

I might just have to pick up Looper from Redbox on Monday(I think I have another online coupon code so 32 cents for a BD rental is a great deal). I saw Looper in the theater and wanted to see it again. I don't know how the release slipped pass me. Usually I have titles in my queue months before they are released.
Edited by aaronwt - 12/29/12 at 12:22pm

Funny, I never get coupon codes from Red Box.



Ian

I have no idea what's going on with Blockbuster. While ParaNorman has finally become available, Looper has left my queue (I could have sworn that I added it while it was still in theaters. Searching for it comes up with the following message: "We're sorry, this title is not available to rent by mail."

Based on titles, it seems like Blockbuster may have caved with Disney, Warner, and Universal, and may still be negotiating new contracts with Sony and 20th Century Fox.

If I weren't a Dish customer, I'd probably dump them. They closed all the stores close to me, so in-person exchanges aren't possible. But, since it's basically free for me, I'll keep settling with them for them. Plus, the service I had with Netflix wasn't all that much different.

Scott

I just signed up with Dish Network and will be getting the Blockbuster @Home service free for 3 months. I will report back on how smooth the by mail portion of that program works. By the way, if anyone is thinking of getting Dish, let me know because I can refer you and you would get a $50 credit or $50 gift card with discounted rates.

By the way, has anyone noticed the mobile section on the web site? Are they really selling phones and wireless plans now? I wonder if this is the future of Blockbuster where they start up a mobile section in their remaining 850-900 stores that are left. It could help them out if they did. If they did go this route, I hope its nothing like Best Buy Mobile where they consistently have terrible service where they need all this info from you to get into your account and their employees don't know how to operate every part of the business. If Dish ever got a good internet plan going, they could bundle TV, wireless, and internet all in one package.
Edited by DJ Matt - 12/29/12 at 11:20pm

I get one or two a month. I never used them in the past because you could not use them with an online reservation. But recently they started allowing their use with online reservations which is the only way I will rent a title from RedBox.

With the RedBox instant service they recently sent out a bunch of coupons to each email that signed up for info about the service. And a month or two ago I signed up several emails for info and I received coupon codes for each of those email addresses.

It looks that way. They finely got approval from the FCC to convert the satellite spectrum they had purchased to wireless use.



FCC approves Dish Network’s wireless plans

That will be pretty cool if they can offer a bundle, but they do need to find someway to offer internet. I understand they offer Dishnet, but its more for rural areas and the bandwidth is capped and you are not allowed to use anymore than 10-20GB per month. If they can offer internet like Comcast does at high speeds and bandwidth caps at 250-300GB then a bundle from Dish offering TV, internet, and wireless would definitely be very attractive. Most people seem to be ditching their home phones in favor of just having cell service.

I've just had the same experience on Expendables 2 whereby rental had 5.1DD whilst the Bluray that they were selling of the same film had HD-DTS. Sound was rubbish in comparison to what it should have been so have put the question forward to Blockbuster.

Lets see what they say...........................

This issue has been a topic on several theads .. Lionsgate has been doing this with others as well .. you want a cheap rental, apparently you're going to give up something ..

I have been using my iPad's mobile app to access BB so hadn't seen their website in a while. Today I log-on and am amazed to see what's (not) there. They ditched for example the "new to Blu-ray"? I clicked on Drama movies for the heckuvit and I swear out of 200 movies they listed, I'd heard of only one or two of them! Like I'd slipped into an alternate universe or something!

I too have no idea what's going on with Blockbuster!

Dish Network. That's what's going on. This is a company that refused to negotiate and dropped many of the New York area sports networks, forcing thousands of customers in the tri state area to go back to cable, or like myself, switch to DTV.



Ian

Why were they dropped? My guess is that the costs to keep these channels were going way up. What's going to happen eventually is that each TV provider is going to charge a monthly fee just for your local regional sports network. I think DirecTV is starting to do this in February and then eventually everyone will.

I order three 3D titles but they sent regular 2D Bluray. I called qnd was told the 3D were out of stock so "as not to disappoint me,they sent the 2D versions." I immediately cancelled my subscription and returned the three discs. They charged me for one claiming I had not returned it but refunded my money. I can not trust them again. I have joined another 3D Bluray on-line rental group and I will report on their efficiency as soon as I receive my first month of satisfaction.

They were dropped years ago and they never had the YES network which covers the Yankees. DTV will not be charging current customers extra fees unless they have only basic programing. According to DTV, some new customers will pay extra for some local sports depending on their package and area, but YES, MSG and SNY, which cover all of local NY professional teams, will continue to be available on all choice packages and up for free in the tri state market.


http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/88369/directv-charging-extra-for-sports


Ian
Edited by mailiang - 1/1/13 at 1:19pm

That's good they won't be charging you more. I am just afraid at some point in time in the foreseeable future that all cable and satellite companies will impose extra fees to carry regional sports. The rising costs to carry these channels will be passed down to the customers. I hope I am wrong, but from all I have read online it seems like that will be the case.

I agree and I'm also concerned. However, my problem with Dish is that they refused to even offer me option in the first place. They are the only TSP that doesn't carry the local teams here. They lost a ton of business because they bit off their nose despite their face, and now everyone is surprised at BB's new rental policies? Please.


Ian

I'm not sure if surprised is the right word, more like confused.

It's been more than a year and a half since Dish took over Blockbuster. At first, it looked like they wanted the brand too help expand their customer base as a new distribution outlet, looking for synergy between the businesses. As a Dish customer, it was a great deal for me, since I had already subscribed to what had been called their Platinum HD package, and was already a Blockbuster by Mail customer. It made BD rentals free. During that time, they provided better service to me than I had seen with my earlier time with Netflix. I was pretty lucky with new releases, there weren't any studio-imposed delays on titles, and the in-store exchange option was a nice bonus.

More and more stores began closing. There were multiple bumps and slowdowns with the mail service. Now titles are getting delayed, and some can't even be added to the queue. Those are big and disappointing changes. Some are permanent, some may be temporary. Is the ultimate plan to kill off the service? Will there be a push to streaming? This doesn't reflect surprised, since I have no idea what their current rental policies are.

Had the service not been taken over by Dish, Blockbuster would likely have died and we wouldn't have seen any kind of rentals over the past 18 months, so I do appreciate the service I received during that time. They were a viable alternative to Netflix for customers that didn't care about streaming. There's no way I could recommend them to anyone at this point, though.

I've appreciated Dish's aggressive negotiations with content providers. Yes, it has resulted in some channels missing, and it's up to the viewer to decide if those channels mean anything to them. On the other hand, they've been pretty generous with their offers to good customers. They offered Cinemax for $.01 for two years. (I recorded a lot of HD movies to my HD DVR during that time.) When they dropped AMC, they handed out $10 monthly credits for those who asked. That's a $120 value for losing a channel for a few months. If they're doing the same thing now with the Blockbuster service, I could understand, and might even support their tactic, but we just don't know.

Sadly, if they do end up discontinuing the Blockbuster service, it's one less option for consumers.

Scott

For what it's worth, The Dark Knight Rises became available yesterday, Looper suddenly showed up in fourth place in my queue today, as a Medium Demand title, and Total Recall and Resident Evil moved from the Not Available section to my queue, but with an unknown status.

I'm not going to get into a debate as to which TSP is better, that's a subject better suited for DBS talk.com. I've had both and I personally prefer DTV in terms of service, choice and flexibility. When comparing BB to Netflix, it's been pretty much the same thing, at least for me.




Ian

I'm surprised about the service since coming back, but it could be again because I started back up. Previously I returned my titles to the store, but since coming back I have been retruning them in the mail The turnaround has been quick. I drop the rentals in the mailbox in the morning, and the next day the next titles in my queue are on their way to me.

If I remember correctly though, the last time I came back to BB they were great for the first month or two and then changed back to their old ways once the promo period was up.

Hmmm...same thing happened with me.




Ian

It wasn't my intent to start such a debate, either. I've been a customer of both services, also, and prefer Blockbuster (at lease until lately), and Dish. Both have different operating strategies and slightly different costs and services. Had Dish not bought Blockbuster, Netflix would have been the only remaining disc-by-mail option. It's good for consumers to have multiple choices.

I happened to stumble on the Netflix thread, and it looks like they had the same issue with Looper. It could have been some odd studio fluke that affected both of them for some reason.

Scott

Never had a problem with Looper. Was on the top of my Que and I received it on Monday.


Ian

I didn't have an issue with Looper on Netflix.

The only issue I noticed was the Netflix disc site was down for a good part of the day on Monday. It didn't affect shipping or receiving of discs, though - only the notifications.

Would you care to point to a post in the Netflix thread where someone didn't get the disc?

It seems the key to having a good or bad experience with Blockbuster is which distribution center you're assigned. As far as I can tell, Blockbuster never mails a disc from any distribution center but your own.

My service was slightly better than Netflix for 2 years until the nearest distribution center and all of our local stores were closed. Since being assigned to a distribution center in another state, not only does mail get delayed by an extra day each way, but this center is so overloaded that my queue is full of movies that have been "Very Long Wait" for 12+ months. I watched most of them on satellite months ago when they were shown on the extra movie channels I get from Dish. But I left them in my queue to see if they will ever change status. Not one ever has.

I only keep BB@Home for the extra Dish channels. For me, there's no such thing as "Blockbuster BD rental".

--Dan

Based on shipping times, none of the movies I've received recently have come from the distribution center by me. Shipping times are one day for the DC area. It's been taking one day when I ship it back. But when they ship it to me it's been taking two to three days. Unless they have been putting them down as being shipped and actually mailing them a day or two later.

Sounds like quite a lot of issues with BB Online. I have not had the service since October, but just a few months ago I was fairly pleased with the service, but it seems as if they have a lot of big new release titles not available. It surprises me that Dark Knight Rises was not available until now. I wonder if a 28 day window is being implemented on the online service like Netflix, although, I have not heard of this happening. The stores definitely had Dark Knight Rises in stock the day it came out. I am unsure as to why the online does not have it. I just started up my Dish subscription and have the BB@Home service. I will let everyone know how that goes. Hopefully a title gets shipped to me on Monday.
I have had both as well. I would have to say DirecTV is better for sports (love the Sunday Ticket). As far as DVR and technology I have to give Dish Network the nod on this and I have only had it a few days. I like their Hopper whole home HD DVR much better than DirecTV's HD DVR. HD quality is about the same between the two companies.

DTV also has a whole home DVR, but it comes at premium. I have 4 DVR's which works for me since I only pay a single monthly fee. As far as Netflix is concerned, I received TDKR just before Christmas, with BB it still remained as unknown while they were renting copy's in their stores. They seem to prioritize a retail business that has been failing, which to be honest with you, befuddles me.



Ian

My error.

When I had skimmed through the thread, I had seen that someone posted that Netflix had received Looper around the same time as it showed up in my Blockbuster queue. I didn't realize that he meant they received as a return, and incorrectly put the two events together, figuring that this issue might have been title-related and not just a Blockbuster issue.

That'll teach me for hastily browsing a thread I don't follow, and then referencing it.

This mirrors my experience in Baltimore and we use (I believe) the same shipping center in Gaithersburg, Md.  I get notified of shipping and it is routinely 2-3 days to get to me.  I almost always return to the local store for an exchange, but 1 of the 2 stores near me closed some time ago and the remaining store seems like it has reduced staff and inventory and may be on its way to closing as well.  Once that goes, I'm off BB as the mail service is too spotty.  Not sure what to do then as I prefer the BD discs to streaming for best quality and pricing.  I left Netflix during the big debacle some time back and understand they are also reducing their reliance on new disc rentals vs streaming.